Music Reigns
by Marzi
Summary: Laura goes missing during Baltar's trial.


A/N Oneshot alt to _Crossroads. _I don't like the way this is formatted, but FFnet is just like that.

* * *

Laura pulled off her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose.

_How long do you have to live?_

She tossed her glasses to the desk with more force than necessary. She had been living on borrowed time for more than a year, yet she couldn't help but feel cheated. Laura had laid down with death before and been quite happy with her arrangements. Now...

There was so much left to do. That had been the case last time as well. Her circumstances hadn't changed, not really. So why was it so much more difficult to accept this time around?

"Ma'am?"

Laura pulled herself out of her musings and looked up at the young pilot. "Yes?"

"Your raptor is waiting."

"That time already?" Laura tried to smile. This would be her second diloxon treatment. She was still reeling from her press conference, and she thought she would have a few more minutes to pull herself together. Plucking her glasses up from the desk she slowly stood, gesturing for the pilot to lead the way.

The young woman seemed too nervous to take the lead.

"Are you alright?" Laura asked once they started towards the raptor.

She looked scared at the question. No one expected the president to actually ask after their welfare. Laura sighed at the silence she received in reply.

* * *

_There was a funny taste in the back of her mouth, but it didn't seem that important._

_Water ran through her fingers but she could grasp it, twisting currents together, then weaving them with the fine thread they made. She could touch and understand everything, but the moment it fell out of her reach it was all muddled. Confused._

_Trying to decipher something under water._

_Funny thing was, she couldn't tell if it was the world slipping out from under her, or if she was the one drowning._

* * *

"_Galactica _actual." Bill flicked through the papers on the clipboard in his hand. Had he already looked at this requisition order?

"Is this line scrambled?"

The admiral paused, Tory sounded nervous. It was disconcerting for Tory to sound nervous. "Yes."

"I.. I can't find the president."

"Ms. Foster, what do you mean you can't find the president?"

Helo's attention immediately settled on him from across the strategy board.

"She was supposed to leave to go to _Galactica _for her treatment. I came to see if she was ready, and now I can't find her."

"She must still be on_ Colonial One_," he insisted.

"The press has all left, but one group doesn't have a raptor."

"What?"

"I believe someone took the raptor and..." Tory hesitated, "I can't find the president."

'I can't find her' sounded a lot better than 'I believe she's been kidnapped'.

"What do the press have to say?"

"Their pilot is gone, they think it's a joke."

"Let them keep thinking that. Do you know the pilot's name?"

* * *

_If there was a boat, she'd fallen off. Treading water didn't seem practical, if she ever tried._

_She could feel a current tugging at her body, and finally realized what she had instinctively known. The river would carry her where she needed to go._

_There was no reason to fight it._

* * *

"How long has she been gone?"

"At least a half an hour, when the reporters were cleared from the ship. It's forty-five minutes since the press conference and that's when she was last seen."

Gaeta pulled up the flight logs, eyes scanning the information rapidly, then double checking because the admiral was leaning over his shoulder. "All raptor flights leaving _Colonial One _in that time went to their reported destinations."

"The reporters left behind said they were supposed to return to the _Rising Star_. Who piloted that flight?"

"Raptor 342. Piloted by lieutenant Madeline Voranski, docked twenty minutes ago."

"Get me the captain of the_ Rising Star _on the wireless, we need to stop all transports from leaving that ship."

"Yes sir."

Bill pressed his lips together, face tightening. The _Rising Star _was one of the active hubs, twenty minutes was a long time. Odds were Laura was long gone, had she even been brought there in the first place.

* * *

_The river led to the ocean, and there the sun broke apart in the water, just as the water broke apart in the sun._

_It was very simple, and all that she had left to do was evaporate._

* * *

Lee paced, running a hand down his tie as he did so. The president's disappearance had all but halted the trial, but he still found himself cooped up with Baltar and Romo. He had no where else to be.

"You keep pacing like that, you're going to fall through the deck." Romo was slouched in a chair, sunglasses on and head tilted back.

Baltar flinched when Lee stopped to glare at the lawyer. Before the young man could talk back, he quickly spoke up.

"Gentlemen, really, tensions are just a bit high at the moment, but I think we should all try and relax." He twisted his hands in his lap, voice going high-pitched. "I mean, they won't be coming after us.. will they?"

"If you keep nattering on about that woman, they might," Romo supplied, making Baltar whimper.

"That woman," Lee snapped. "Is your president."

"Yea, sure, but she's hardly my friend." The lawyer lifted his head, and though his eyes were impossible to see, Lee felt as if he was being stared down. "And after your performance in court the other day, I don't believe you are either."

The ex-pilot bowed his head, guilt making his body tense and his face flush.

"Why so worried?" Romo dropped his head so that he was staring at the ceiling once again. "Your father'll find her."

"Yes, yes," Baltar chirped. "I'm sure the admiral will do a splendid job of tracking her down, but what's going to happen to me?"

"Count yourself lucky," Romo said. "Be glad they're putting things off, giving you a bit more time out and about. Be happy that they aren't declaring a verdict post-haste due to this hiccup."

"Hiccup," Lee muttered. Laura Roslin had vanished into the fleet and it was a hiccup.

The marines outside the door banged on the hatch before opening it to admit a lunch tray. All traffic in the fleet had been halted, turning the room into Baltar's cell. He wasn't allowed to leave, so necessities were brought to him. Romo made some comment about poor room service, but Lee ducked out into the hallway before he could be glared at by the marine with the tray. He knew better than to ask for anything from _Galactica _personnel. If he wanted to eat, he would need to find his own meal.

He could also check for news on the wireless in the galley. Surely something new had been discovered by now?

* * *

_She stretched out above everything, a strange pressure holding her up._

_She felt cold, even as she got closer to the sun._

* * *

"Oh shit,_ oh_ shit,_ oh shit_.." He ran his hands through his hair, grabbing large tufts of it.

"Calm the frak down!" His companion hissed, eyeing the hatch uneasily.

"Frak, I knew we shouldn't have given her the whole thing." He dropped his hands, eyes darting towards the bunk before quickly turning down.

"Shut-up!"

"We killed her," he moaned. "Frak, we killed her.."

"She's still breathing, she's not dead."

"Oh Gods, this was not supposed to happen."

"We didn't know what was going to happen." He grabbed his shoulders, almost shaking him. "Now, where's Mads?"

"She went to get the transmitter, she wanted to get help."

"Is she frakking insane? We need to get out of here, we can't get found here."

"What? We can't just leave her here!"

"The frak we can't, you wanna stay, you go ahead."

"No, no.. I just.. What if Mads comes back?"

"It's her own fault if she does, let's get out of here." He scurried towards the hatch, opening it quickly. He looked over his shoulder at his frozen friend. "C'mon," he growled, hurrying out into the hallway.

The younger man hesitated a moment before following after, closing the hatch behind him.

Unconscious on the bunk, Laura Roslin was sprawled on her stomach. Her cheek was turned to the pillow, and a pile of foamy vomit soaked into the mattress next to her. A cord, partially obscured by her rolled up sleeve, was tied above her left elbow. On the floor a cracked syringe shivered with the vibrations of the ship's engine.

* * *

_There was a tremble through what was left of her- what was body in this space?- before she started to fall._

* * *

"Sir."

"What is it?" Bill didn't bother to look up from the reports scattered on the table in front of him. The list of flight logs were starting to blur together.

"A transmission was intercepted from the_ Prometheus_."

"And?"

"It seems it was a call for medical assistance..."

Bill looked up, holding the gaze of his officer.

".. for the president."

* * *

_One piece of her fell back to the earth. A break in the silence of the tension that held her in the air._

_The rest of her fell, into the river, the ocean, the trees, mountains, valleys and even the deserts._

_Every strike was a note to a melody she was just beginning to hear._

* * *

"Make a hole, gods damn it, did you not hear me? Make a hole!" Saul's uncoordinated limbs pushed their way into the crowd, and as if sensing the XO was about to start swinging, they finally parted.

Saul wasn't too sure what was happening as he stumbled forward into life station; all he knew was that the music had gotten louder. It felt like it was beating against his skull, demanding to get out. Which didn't make any sense, because he knew the music wasn't coming from him.

At the moment, it seemed to be coming from the monitors that were wailing out a tachycardia mamba, trying to cover up the tune.

Saul squinted his one eye, trying to see whose death was singing.

Cottle shouted 'clear!' and Laura Roslin's body lurched on the gurney.

* * *

_The song roared louder, growing from some impossible place._

_She fell against something not of Earth, and heard the first lyric. It was an old song._

* * *

All it took was two hours for everything to go to hell.

Lee kept his head turned away from the group crowded around the wireless, though he doubted they would notice him even if he started doing cartwheels.

Roslin had been found aboard the_ Prometheus_. Depending on which station you tuned to, she was either dead, caught buying something illegal, a cylon, or currently aboard_ Galactica_. Lee fervently hoped she was in Cottle's care. If she was dead.. if she was dead. Gods, what were they going to do if she was dead?

The frantic speculative chatter of the show hosts suddenly halted.

"Vice president Zarek is making a statement from _Colonial One_."

The bodies around the wireless fell into silence. Lee felt his whole body tense, fingers digging into his knees.

If.

* * *

_Chords rattled from engines like a teenager's first overeager guitar strum through an amp._

_The squealing discord of feedback was in her mind. Their minds. She couldn't reach them though, not like how she could the pilot._

_Falling against the cockpit of an impossible ship._

_What do you hear?_

_She's nothing but the rain._

* * *

Sam clutched his glass tighter, fingers twitching. The news on the wireless had enraptured everyone in Joe's Bar, but he longed to reach for the dial, search through the political murmurings and find that gods' damned song. It was there, hidden somewhere in the static. If he could just catch it once, he would finally know what it was.

Frustrated, he slammed his glass onto the counter and pushed himself up. One person by the radio shot him an angry look, but quickly redirected their attention. The clamoring noise of reporters came through the tiny radio, Zarek had finished speaking, but Sam wasn't trying to catch their questions. Through their noise, he could catch the faintest hints of a melody.

There was something in the chaos.

Stomping over to the empty side of the bar, he found himself by the piano. His fingers twitched again.

He didn't know how to play.

He didn't remember how.

He never...

* * *

_She's lashing against the leaves, the earth, feeling the rumble of the thunder through the dirt. The wind howled._

_There was a final click from the gun camera and then the ship was gone._

_She's there though, falling against her lips, mingling with her blood as she smiled through the broken window of her cockpit._

_Except, she was never there to begin with._

_Laura can't say she can claim that either. There's a body somewhere, one for each of them, and neither has stepped upon this place._

_There is a body somewhere for her, and it aches._

* * *

Cottle toyed with the cigarette in his mouth, resisting the urge to usher the admiral away now, and let his patient rest.

"I didn't survive."

Laura's voice cut through him, calm and certain. He tightened his hand around his lighter to keep it from shaking.

"I've been told my heart stopped at least twice on the way here."

"You're alive now, you'll recover."

"No, I won't. Overdosing hasn't made my cancer disappear."

She wasn't pulling any punches. Knowing his CO's limits, Cottle stepped in.

"That's enough for now, you can come back later, she needs rest."

The admiral shot him a dark look, but turned and left without protest; and the doctor knew he was grateful.

"Now you, young lady, are you going to sleep on your own?"

She closed her eyes and waved her hand halfheartedly at him, letting him know it wouldn't be a problem. As she shifted on the bed to get more comfortable, he heard her hum a few bars of a tune, before it faded with the breath of her sleep.

* * *

_There's music falling on her lips and Earth in her bones. The sound can lead her back to this place, but for now there's a river leading her home, and a woman with her feet in the water marking the way. Kara knows better than to try and take her with her._

_There is a body somewhere for her, and it sings._

* * *

The trial still needed to reconvene, lieutenant Voranski still hadn't been found, and Laura was in sickbay.

At least he still had this. The nebula, their quest for Earth. Bill ran his hand over the worn edge of the strategy board, wondering how much more he and his ship had to take.

"Ready to go on your mark, sir."

They could be one step closer to home. His was here, what did he have left to find that wasn't already lost to him?

"Jump."


End file.
